THE CROSS OF PEACE

Always had at seeing a French regiment pass—a tingling
in the blood, a sense of exaltation, a tightening at the heart

This rhythm of marching men, these uniforms of fighting
men, stirred something primitive, instinctive, in human
nature The very babies felt it—these English babies in
perambulators with their pretty nurses Yvonne felt it, as
he saw by her bright eyes and smiling lips, and the eager
poise of her body as she looked over the heads of the crowd
The glamour of a uniform—the blare of brass instruments—•
the glint of bayonets—what strange power did they have over
human psychology ?

It was ridiculous, really, for sensible fellows in the twentieth
century to be dressed in blood red coats and those preposterous
bearskins, and to walk with stiff knees like automatic men,
and to give convulsive jerks at the shout of an officer It was
savage stuff really Ju ju stuff ' The appeal to totem worship
and the war-paint of the braves

Certainly they are magnificent, * said Yvonne, "though
not so splendid, of course, as our Gardes Rdpublicames **

* They ought to be abolished ' said Armand jestingly
**We shall never get rid of war so long as we allow men to
anarch about in uniform It is an incitement to tribal instincts,
arresistible but unintelligent

Yvonne slapped his hand, which was tucked through her
right arm

Armand, you are ridiculous ! You say these things to
snake me angry

It wasn't to make her angry that he said those things, but
to bring her nearer to himself in spiritual understanding and
sympathy It would be a divorce of their minds to some extent*
to a painful degree, if she remained hostile to his convictions
and endeavours on the subject of peace

Many times in that first year of marriage he tried to
persuade her that a moderate pacifism, an intelligent pacifism,
was not a disloyalty to France or the vague illusion of visionary
nunds He argued that it was the only method by which